After a sophomore season of significant Plus growth, The Flash was not able to keep it going early in season three, and pre-season hopes of a league average season were dashed with its drops to 1.1 in week two and 1.0 in week three. However, it did pick up nicely in the second half of the fall, including a 1.5 for its crossover episode in late November. It was joined by disastrous newbie No Tomorrow, which managed to fare miles worse than the already poor iZombie retention.

winter

Year

8:00

8:30

9:00

9:30

Avg

2015-16

The Flash

The Flash

iZombie

iZombie

67

2015-16

98

98

36

36

67

2016-17

The Flash

The Flash

Legends of Tomorrow

Legends of Tomorrow

67 (0%)

2016-17

83 (-16%)

82.996385401118

51 (+42%)

51 (+42%)

66.8052872654901

VsAvg

+65%

0.65484085376241

+24%

0.243414773111193

+47%

Rank

3/16

3/16

4/16

4/16

3/16

But even Flash's solid late fall fizzled out with a return to 1.0ish ratings in the winter, and its comparisons fell into the negative double digits. But the network still broke even in the period thanks to a nice showing from Legends of Tomorrow in a two-month stop on the night.

spring

Year

8:00

8:30

9:00

9:30

Avg

2015-16

The Flash

The Flash

Containment

Containment

61

2015-16

87

87

34

34

61

2016-17

The Flash

The Flash

iZombie

iZombie

53 (-13%)

2016-17

80 (-8%)

79.5948941961542

26 (-26%)

26 (-26%)

52.5530391166915

VsAvg

+70%

0.699046898657371

-28%

-0.275443869365321

+28%

Rank

3/16

3/16

11/16

11/16

5/16

At least compared with the winter ratings, Flash held up rather well after DST, mostly mixing 0.9's and 1.0's. iZombie returned for season three in April and, as usual, was completely unfazed by the Flash lead-in; it was respectable when following repeats, but its retention was worse than ever after originals.

The Flash: It's still absolutely massive so I don't want to be too harsh. But before the season, it was a show that appeared to have a very real chance of becoming the first netlet series to break the league average. And it was clear within the first few weeks that it had no real shot. So I think it has to be considered a slight disappointment. Grade: C+.

No Tomorrow: I kinda feel sorry for the show because we could all see well ahead of time what a stupid pairing this was, and the result was historically atrocious retention. But to have a chance at renewal, it needed to generate some kind of positive buzz or streaming interest, and it couldn't do that either. It had nothing to hang its hat on. Grade: F.

Legends of Tomorrow: With a move from winter-spring to fall-winter, plus some Tuesday episodes after The Flash, this was a show that fared much worse in True Plus than the raw decline. However, it looks more favorable when throwing out a bit of the
frontloaded nature of season one. Considering the drops from the
superhero empire in general, this one fared OK relative to expectations. Grade: B-.

iZombie: Last year it aired almost all of the season with huge original Flash lead-ins; this time it was less than 50% of the season. Last year it aired through the fall and wrapped in the first half of April; this year it premiered in the first half of April and had to go deep into the summer. So there aren't any real apples-to-apples comparisons and it clearly got a much tougher draw this year. But I would still argue it got a good bit weaker. It managed 0.5's with small lead-ins last year, and only 0.3's this time around. Grade: C-.

The names in this last table link to the shows' War of 18-49 pages. Links with an asterisk(*) have been updated with the new info. Updates to younger shows will come later in the summer.